The Omnivorous Reader

Balancing the Scales

Just ice among disparat e peopl es in Colonial Amer ica

By St ephen e . Smit h Humorist Edgar Wilson “Bill” Nye is credited with saying: “ Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.” Readers of popular histor y who tough their way through 464 pages of Nicole Eustace’s Covered with Night: A Stor y of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America will likely be left with the notion that what they’ve read is more profound than entertaining.

“Covered with Night” is an Iroquois expression descr ibing the state of g r ief or mour ning inspired, in this instance, by the 1722 murder of a Native A mer ican man who lived near Conestoga, Pennsylvania, a small communit y nor th of the Mar ylandPennsylvania border. Details of the fatal encounter are straightforward and commonplace: English merchants John and E dmund Car tlidge were bargaining with Sawantaeny, a Seneca hunter and f ur trader, when an over indulgence in alcohol, probably by all par ties concer ned, led to a disag reement. Sawantaeny went for his r ifle, but John Car tlidge disar med him and bashed in the Seneca’s sk ull.

“My f r iends have k illed me,” were Sawantaeny’s last words.

Such incidents, ter r ible though they may be, are not an uncommon aspect of human interaction, but in the early 170 0s, a per iod in A mer ica’s past that is strangely deficient f rom the histor y we’ve been taught (we lear n about the L ost Colony, Jamestow n, Plymouth and myster iously we jump to the Boston Harbor Tea Par t y), such a death had far-reaching ramifications for the Native A mer ican and Colonial communities. Covered with Night explores the causes and consequences of the Car tlidges’ ill-advised assault on Sawantaeny, while illuminating the f undamental flaws in the relationships that existed bet ween the Native A mer ican and Colonial cult ures.

Eustace’s complex treatise was made possible by the meticulously documented speeches of a Native man called “Captain Civilit y,” who reacted to the death of Sawantaeny by attempting to streng then the tenuous bonds that existed bet ween the competing cult ures, and Eustace was able to draw on earlier st udies by 20th cent ur y ethnog raphers and on postmoder n analyses on social and cr iminal justice. If all of this sounds complicated, it is.

Investigations of Sawantaeny’s murder by Native A mer ican leaders and Colonial of ficials initiated a debate about the ver y nat ure of justice and its cult ural context. Colonial author ities were fear f ul that the murder might br ing on a f ull-scale war, endanger ing the white population and disr upting trade. T he cr isis was ser ious enough that news of it reached the Br itish Board of Trade in England, resulting in a reg ion-wide treat y conference that produced an obscure document sig ned at A lbany in 1722 bet ween members of the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee and representatives f rom the colonies of New York, Pennsylvania, and Virg inia. It remains the oldest recog nized treat y in the histor y of the United States. Much more than a simple diplomatic instr ument, the treat y records a foundational A mer ican debate over the nat ure of justice.

Avoiding conflict with their Indigenous neighbors was the foremost concer n of the Colonial author ities, and they held the Car tlidge brothers in irons pending their execution — which is exactly what the Native A mer icans hoped to avoid. Pennsylvania Gov. William Keith was dismayed to lear n that sending the Car tlidges to the gallows was counter to the Native A mer ican notion of justice. Native diplomats

Satcheechoe and Taquatarensaly asked that the Car tlidges be released f rom pr ison and f rom the threat of execution. T hey prefer red that Keith jour ney to meet with the leaders of the Five Nations to “cover the dead ” by of fer ing reparations and per for ming mour ning r it uals that addressed their g r ief — all of which ran counter to Colonial assumptions about what constit utes civilized retr ibution.

T he Iroquois weren’t “savages,” as character ized by the Colonial author ities. T hey were possessed of a humanit y that tied them to the land and their communities, and they saw the murder as an oppor t unit y to establish stronger and more lasting bonds with their Colonial neighbors. T hey wanted their collective g r ief assuaged emotionally and accounted for economically.

“Colonists were so unprepared for Native of fers of clemency, a total inversion of their expectations, that they made little deliberate note of the philosophy that infor med Native policy,” Eustace wr ites. “Indigenous ideals entered the record made at A lbany almost inadver tently, the by-product of colonial desires to document the land and trade ag reements that would f ur ther Pennsylvania’s prosper it y and secur it y. Still, colonists dutif ully wrote dow n the speeches that Captain Civilit y and other Native speakers made to them. A nd in the process, they preser ved Indigenous ideas on cr ime and punishment, violation and reconciliation.” Negotiations were complicated by bar r iers of lang uage and dialect. Var ious Native A mer ican tong ues had to be translated f rom one Indigenous speaker to another until the words evolved into a concept that could be realized in standard English.

If Eustace’s explication of events is occasionally academic, it’s also thought-provok ing, requir ing patience and commitment on the par t of the reader. Attempts to energ ize the nar rative by using present tense, and a somewhat awk ward fictional attr ibution of motivations to characters whose tr ue emotions are unk nowable, only ser ve to leng then and diminish the stor y: “Seated at his table, William Keith war ms the bottom of a stick of ver milion sealing wa x,” she wr ites. “He feels the heat but will take care not to bur n his fingers. In a quiet room, a dollop of wa x makes a sof t splotch as it hits paper, round and red as a drop of blood. Keith lets the wa x cool a moment f rom liquid to paste, then presses smar tly with his seal to emboss the wa x with an intr icate patter n of scrolls.”

Eustace also includes detailed descr iptions — f ur nit ure, dwellings, the travails of daily living, concepts sur rounding indent ured ser vit ude and slaver y — that enhance the reader’s k nowledge of an other wise obscure per iod in our histor y. But her pr imar y contr ibution is the reclamation of alter native concepts of cr ime, punishment and the mitigation of g r ief that are no longer components of contemporar y life. OH

St eph en E . Smith is a ret ire d profe ssor an d th e auth or of seven bo ok s of p o etr y an d prose. He’s th e recipi ent of th e Po etr y Nor thw e st Young Po et’s Pr ize, th e Z o e Kin c ai d Bro ckm an Pr ize for p o etr y an d four Nor th Carolin a Pre ss Award s.

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